Lucky nods emphatically. “No one can resist the Hatch green chile bison burgers.”
I look at Margie again.
Total poker face. “The fact remains that you’re asking me to go to dinner with my bosses.”
“Who aren’t involved in operations at all,” Jack responds instantly.
“They’ll be offended if youdon’tcome,” Lucky adds.
“They’re our best friends,” Decker says. “They want to meet our sister.”
Fuck.
She can’t say no to that.
Not when Decker’s owning her as a sister.
Sure enough, she’s now smiling brightly at the triplets with a smile that I’m positive is forced and fake. “Then I guess it’s settled. We’re going.”
Bad idea.
But if it’s a bad idea, it’s a good bad idea.
She gets to hang with her brothers.
I get a green chile bison burger.
And to watch her hang with her brothers.
And hopefully another opportunity or two to be her hero.
23
IS IT STILL CALLED BREATHING WHEN IT’S HYPERVENTILATING?
Margot
Sabrina and Greyhave a beautiful home nestled into the forest on a mountainside. It’s newly renovated, with wood and stone touches everywhere, inside and out. Flagstone patios and rock gardens ring the immediate perimeter, with wildflower gardens scattered beyond. Inside is classy but cozy, with high-beam ceilings and oversized furniture and local artwork scattered among pictures of the couple, their dogs, and their baby, along with several of Sabrina and her two best friends—sometimes just the women, sometimes the women with their husbands too.
And as the triplets promised, it has an epic kombucha cellar that takes up half the lower level, which is where I am now.
Unlike my father’s wine cellar, which is absurdly large and stores more bottles of wine that he keeps for investment purposes than bottles he intends to drink, the kombucha cellar is a working cellar, where kombucha is actively brewing in five large glass tanks on one wall that has a painting of the mountains behind it.
“Different flavors,” Zen, who was introduced to me as Grey’s close relative and best friend, explains to me when I ask why they’re different colors.
Zen’s tall and lanky with short blond hair and a way of looking at you that promises the sassitude is hanging out just beneath the surface, waiting for an excuse to emerge.
“From different honeys, or different additions?” I ask.
“Some of both.” They gesture to the first tank. “This one’s honey only. Same with this next one. Butthisone—this one, we added raspberries and lavender. Then mint here. And my personal favorite of the moment, lemon ginger.”
“You run the kombrewchery here in town?” I ask them.
“I run everything here. Some people aren’t smart enough to realize it though.”
I smile.
They smile back, but then narrow their eyes. “You have secrets, don’t you?”
